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Robin isn’t an adventurer by trade. Not even close. In fact, if anything she’s more of a wanderer. Traveling town to town, village to village, looking for odd jobs and work to do. It seems over time word has spread that she was utterly incompetent in combat, and mostly a pacifist, so most people looking for a fight tended to leave her alone. So, as Robin wanders deeper and deeper into the woods, searching for a runaway chicken for one of the town folks, the last thing she was expecting to hear was an arrow whizzing past her ear, embedding in the trunk of the tree just in front of her.
Her immediate reaction is to stumble back with a yelp, almost toppling over backwards. Not the best reaction to have in combat.
“You aren’t allowed back here!” A voice calls from behind her. Robin barely has the strength to look over her shoulder, still shaken by her close encounter with death, but has the strength to call back a quip.
“It’s the woods, nobody can own them!”
“Actually, we can. This is property of a kingdom. You aren’t allowed here.”
At that, she whips around to face her assailant, a small, yet clearly strong, elvish woman with curly hair. The nearest kingdom wasn’t close at all, she must’ve traveled quite far to cover this much distance.
Robin’s confusion and surprise must have been evident on her face, as the elven woman sighs and retrieves her arrow, brushing past Robin on the way, before speaking again.
“If you truly weren’t aware, I’ll let you off with a warning this time. Be careful not to let it happen again, as I won’t be as merciful next time.”
Robin swallows hard at that, glancing back to the clear hole in the wood where an arrow had sat mere moments before. That could’ve been her head!
“Right. Of course.”
Honestly, ever since that close encounter in the woods, she had been trying to be more cautious with where she traveled for odd jobs, and logically she knew trespassing this big wall was something she probably shouldn’t do, but the thing is, one of the kids in town accidentally launched it over, and she couldn’t stand to see them so sad. So, Robin stretched briefly, before scaling the wall ahead of her.
After successfully both climbing and hopping down from the wall, she feels her chest puff with pride, as she isn’t typically the most coordinated of people. She quickly spots the ball too, just a couple feet ahead. Barely even trespassing!
However, she gets hardly a step forward before freezing and getting pulled backwards, cool metal pressing against her neck. Her eyes travel up, from her awkward, slouched backwards position, and catch on the same elven ranger as before.
“We–hah–we gotta stop meeting like this!” Robin weakly attempts to joke, nerves taking away from the humor of it slightly.
“You’re right, we do,” the other girl responds coolly, with the barest tinge of mirth underneath.
As the elven girl walks her through town to decide what to do about her trespassing, knife still held close to her neck, Robin feels the barest tinge of embarrassment flush her cheeks. Whatever, it’s not like anyone was going to be intimidated by her anyway.
“So, do I get a name?” Robin blurts out, wanting to feel not quite as disadvantaged in this situation. Although, the other girl had a knife to her throat, so it’s not like having a name would give her a huge leg up.
She hears the girl sigh, before replying, “Nancy.”
“Nancy? That’s a good name. Did you know that the name Nancy actually originated as a nickname for the name Anne?” She feels the knife get brought slightly closer to her neck, and although she knows Nancy wouldn’t get away with killing her before she got a trial, she dips her head and yields anyway.
Eventually, they reach the castle in the middle of the town, and upon entering the building, the queen rises from her throne to meet them. Nancy kneels before her, before speaking. “Your majesty, I caught this miscreant once again trespassing on our land, and brought her here for judgment.”
The queen’s eyes shift from Nancy to Robin at that, a glimmer of recognition in her eyes as Robin smiles meekly, embarrassed. “She will have no punishment.”
Nancy looks up sharply, frustration glinting in her eyes, forgetting herself momentarily as she speaks. “This isn’t the first time she’s trespassed though! That’s ground for some kind of punishment–” Yet in spite of her efforts, she merely gets waved off.
“Nonsense, she has been a great help around town, she shall get no such punishment.” She turns to address Robin then. “You are always welcome here, invited or not.” Robin merely bows her head in response, murmuring out her gratitude softly, as the queen continues. “You are welcome to stay or go as you please now, you will not be punished.” Robin smiles up at her then, before turning on her heel to walk out.
Before she can exit the grand double doors, however, she raises a hand in a wave, addressing her assailant once more. “Thanks for the escort Nancy, I really appreciate it. She turns with a smirk to see just how infuriated she has left Nancy, before leaving for good.
By now, Robin was admittedly getting a bit cocky. She’d had her stint of getting in trouble, and had gotten out of it just as easily, so she walked carefree again, trusting that now she was safe to go where she pleased without confrontation again. Especially now that it had been several weeks since she’d had any kind of trouble.
In fact, she wasn’t in any sort of danger at all, currently traveling between towns, and nearing the walls of a town for good measure, somewhere to provide her shelter now that the sun was setting. Upon not seeing anyone at the entrance, she decided to just enter, assuming that she could explain her presence come morning; however, before she could get very far into the town at all, she heard a shout of “halt!” from behind her.
Freezing up, she turned slowly, hands up to show she was no threat, but the two guards approaching her didn’t seem to care, ordering her towards the town prison. She sees a silhouette flit across her vision, behind the two guards, but all warning them seems to do is aggravate them more, with them seeing her as some escape artist genius trying to con her way out. All attempts of remotely explaining her way out of this seemed to be in vain, as neither man listened, nor did they seem particularly interested in providing her a fair trial before throwing her in jail. Stupid fucking men.
So Robin sits, sulking in her cell, undeserving of her punishment, when she hears a faint jingling sound coupled with footsteps approaching her. She looks up sharply, concerned for what could warrant that, and her eye catches a familiar face twirling keys around her finger.
“Nancy?!” she gasps, utterly aghast. Of all the people she had been expecting to break her out of this prison, she was among the last, due to her dutiful attempts to get her in prison in the past.
The smaller girl merely smiles down at her as she unlocks her cell door, and reaches a hand down to where Robin still sits, befuddled. Once Robin manages to blink away a bit of her confusion, she grabs the hand and scrambles to her feet, trailing after Nancy, hands still clasped, as she walks purposefully down the hallway to the entrance of the prison.
“H–how did you even get in here? Nancy?” Robin asks, still bewildered as they step out the door, and, oh, the unconscious guard at the entrance would certainly explain a lot. Nancy just smirks back at Robin before slipping the keys back into his pocket, where they were before, and walking away again.
Robin barely has the wits about her to call out “wait!” before Nancy can fully exit the building, and fortunately, she pauses. “Why did you break me out?” Robin continues. “Hasn’t your whole goal been to get me imprisoned this entire time?”
“Yes,” Nancy replies coolly, slowly, “but you’re mine, Robin. If somebody else imprisons you, it takes away half the fun.” and at that, Nancy exits, leaving an adorably flushed Robin behind, recovering and scrambling out only when she hears the unconscious guard groan, waking up.